The Science and Statistics Behind Spanking Suggests that

11-FULLER_FINAL_AFTERPROOF.DOC 2/17/2009 8:50 AM
2009] THE SCIENCE AND STATISTICS BEHIND SPANKING 269
To avoid this downward spiral, clinical researchers have found only
one punishment to be as effective as spanking to get a child to comply
with timeout: barricading him in a small room with a piece of plywood
across the door. 127 However, a barricade may be entirely impractical in
a natural setting due to lack of space or time. 128 Thus, parents generally
prefer spanking to enforce timeout. 129
Without physical discipline, many Swedish children simply are left
to their own misbehavior. 130 This has come at a grave cost. Now
physical force is more often used abusively, when parents get “upset
enough.” 131 Since the spanking ban, although the Swedish population
has remained relatively stable, child abuse rates have increased by over
five-hundred percent, as shown in the following tables. 132
parents who are submissive to their children don’t realize clearly that they have this problem at
all—they just find their children difficult and tiring to manage.”).
127. See, e.g., Roberts, supra note 17 (reporting results from four randomized clinical studies
of defiant children two to six years old. These studies examined which enforcement procedures
were effective at making defiant children comply with timeout. The new “barrier method” (placing
the child in a small room while holding a piece of plywood across the open door) worked when a
two-swat spank did not, and a two-swat spank worked when the barricade did not.).
128. See, e.g., Diana Baumrind, Robert E. Larzelere, Philip A. Cowan, Ordinary Physical
Punishment: Is It Harmful? Comment on Gershoff, 128 PSYCHOL. BULL. 580, 586 (2002)
[hereinafter, Baumrind, Ordinary Physical Punishment] (“It remains to be studied whether parents
can and will use an alternative back-up such as a barrier with a defiant child, especially in homes
where space and time are limited.”); cf. Palmerus, supra note 123 and accompanying text.
129. E.g., Roberts, supra note 17 (finding mothers of defiant two- to six-year-old children
preferred a “two-swat” back-up rather than a barrier or restraint back-up to enforce timeout).
130. See, e.g., Haeuser, supra note 111, at 23 (saying that Swedish parents routinely
overlooked misbehavior shortly after the spanking ban).
131. See, e.g., Statistics Sweden, supra note 113 and accompanying text.
132. The population has remained relatively stable over the past thirty years, increasing from
8,323,033 in 1981 to 8,861,426 in 1999—an increase of just over six percent, a far cry from the
several hundred percent increases in youth violence and child abuse. SCB Statistics
Sweden, Swedish Population (in one-year groups) 1860-2007, available at
http://www.scb.se/statistik/BE/BE0101/2007A01a/Be01010Folkmängd1860-2007eng.xls.